Feb 06

Snow Day Doings

As I mentioned earlier, Seattle doesn’t do snow well. The snow started falling last night near the end of the Super Bowl. My friend, the weather geek, was tracking the storm’s progress throughout the game. Fortunately, everyone got home safely. The snow was still falling when I went to bed. Julian predicted, “You may not be going to work tomorrow.”  When I looked out the window after the alarm clock rang this morning, it was still snowing. I emailed my coworkers that I wasn’t coming in and went back to bed.

Other than reading emails, I don’t work from home. I deal with confidential patient information and still fill out paper data collection forms. So I had to figure out alternative activities. No problem. I had a bunch of recipe clippings to file, which took a good part of the morning. While I was filing, I found a New York Times article from October 1989 on which Julian had scrawled a phone number. I recognized the number as that of my old lab in grad school (AWW…). We met October 14, 1989.

While I was filing, I went through the bread clippings looking for something to bake. A recipe for bialys appeared. More nostalgia: When Julian and I were first going out in Ithaca, we’d often have brunch at the Collegetown Bagels restaurant near his apartment. One of my standard orders was for hummus on a bialy. For those of you not of the New York persuasion, bialys are related to bagels with two key differences:

  1. Bialys don’t have a hole in the center; and
  2. Bagels are boiled before baking, and bialys aren’t.

The bialy dough is easy to make. While it’s rising, you chop up onions and mix them with some poppy seed and a little oil. I used olive oil and added a little bit of dried rosemary. Once the dough is risen, you press balls of dough out, wash them with egg, and press some of the onion-poppy seed mixture into the middle. Another rise, then they go into a hot oven for 20-25 minutes.

The recipe did make 12 bialys – until Julian found them.

On cue, Julian came upstairs from the office shortly after the bialys came out of the oven. “Is it bialy-eating time yet?” I said they still needed to cool, but that didn’t stop him. He split one and smeared cream cheese in the middle. He took a bite, set down the bialy, and gave me a thumbs up. Not bad for a snow day.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/02/06/snow-day-doings/

Feb 04

Super Bowl Chow

In the early years of the Super Bowl, Mad Magazine predicted that it would become a full-fledged national holiday. Little did the “usual gang of idiots” (Mad’s term, not mine) know how right they’d be. Even people who hate football will congregate with friends, heckle the commercials, watch for wardrobe malfunctions during the half time show, and consume mass quantities of chips, chicken wings, and beer.

We’ve hosted a Super Bowl party for our friends for years. We stick to our tried and true recipes for chicken wings, a baked Buffalo variant and peanut-butter-coated. In previous years we’ve also made chili; however, this year we’ll have Cuban black beans and rice. This is another of our greatest hits. I made the beans today, since there won’t be much time to do so tomorrow. Once the beans are cooked, you stir in a sofrito containing onion, garlic, bell pepper, cilantro, tomato paste, and Sazon Goya. My tear ducts were working overtime while I was mincing the onions, as I wasn’t wearing contact lenses. Putting on my glasses didn’t help.

We usually offer a little drama when we host. Our female cat, Neli, arrived shortly before the Super Bowl six years ago. Several of the known twenty-somethings nearly came to blows wanting to hold onto her. Our first year hosting at Casa Sammamish, a shelf in the kitchen cabinet collapsed when I was trying to get out a serving bowl. Scads of dishes fell and broke around me. We managed to clean things up before our guests arrived. A year later, the water heater chose to die just before the game. Luckily, the landlord replaced it in the nick of time.

Am I rooting for either team this year? Not really. I’m hoping for good food and the company of friends. The game is secondary.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/02/04/super-bowl-chow/

Feb 04

Thanks to Scientists

My mother sent me an article from her local paper,The Oswego Valley News, about the return of bald eagles to Central New York. She actually saw an eagle in her yard last year. I had never seen a bald eagle in the wild until we moved to Washington state. Now we have two nesting pairs in our neighborhood. What’s responsible for the return of this species from the brink of extinction? Science – and government.

In the mid 20th century, pesticides such as DDT were commonly used to kill mosquitoes and other damaging insects. My partner Julian remembers the crop dusters that used to spray DDT in his childhood neighborhood on the edge of the Everglades north of Miami. While effective against mosquitoes, DDT resulted in devastating effects as one moved up the food chain. Eagles and other raptors were particularly susceptible to DDT’s damage. Female eagles were unable to lay or hatch eggs into viable chicks. The early DDT research was summarized in Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring.

The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 by President Nixon. DDT’s use was banned in the US in 1972 in response to scientific evidence of its damage to the environment. Although banning the pesticide was a step forward, that wasn’t sufficient to increase the eagle population. Scientists around the country, including at Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology, did the heavy lifting of acquiring eagle eggs from relatively uncontaminated populations, hand-rearing the chicks, and releasing them into the wild after they fledged. According to the Oswego Valley News article, many of Cornell’s eagles were released into the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge at the north end of Cayuga Lake. Successive generations of fledglings established their own nests along the waterways of Central New York, including the Oswego River that runs through the city where I was born.

The return of bald eagles to the skies over our country was a direct result of scientific research that affected government action and funding for further research and remediation. So thank scientists by speaking up for research that benefits us, our country, and our planet. In addition, fight for science as a priority in the Federal budget.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/02/04/thanks-to-scientists/

Jan 29

Pleasant Surprises

I was walking to the Womxn’s March last week when I got two texts from my friend, BG. He’s a family doctor turned AirBnB Superhost (6 quarters in a row!). The first text was that he had a couple of food questions for me. The second was “I have some cookbooks for you.” That got my attention. Apparently one of his guests was a private chef who left him some cookbooks to lighten his load for his flight home. BG delivered them the next day. One, Cooking Dirty, was a book I already had. The others are:

Canyon Ranch Cooks, by Scott Uehlein. Recipes from the spa.

Little Foods of the Mediterranean, by Clifford A. Wright. I have his earlier book, Cucina Paradiso, that describes the Arabic influences on the cuisine of Sicily.

The French Kitchen, by Michel Roux, Jr. Updated French recipes.

The Salt Lick Cookbook, by Scott Roberts and Jessica Dupuy. Recipes from a Texas BBQ restaurant.

They’re definitely good coffee table books. Now I’ll have to see how good they are in the kitchen.

Not a bad haul. Thanks, BG!

 

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/29/pleasant-surprises/

Jan 28

Outrage Fatigue

The concept of compassion fatigue is well known. If someone is inundated with successive tragedies and requests for assistance, the impulse is to crawl into a hole and ignore any subsequent pleas. Recent events bring up a new buzzword: Outrage fatigue.

Outrage fatigue occurs when you’re constantly bombarded with news, tweets, emails, and the like that bring your blood pressure perilously close to stroke territory. In this case, you retreat to your refuge of cat videos and comfort food. The temptation is particularly strong here in the Seattle area: We have elected representatives who are of like mind, and calling to encourage them not to affirm a particular Cabinet nominee (or the whole lot) is preaching to the choir. We also wonder: When does this end? I can’t quit my job and become a professional protester. Such a position certainly won’t pay my rent.

I’m afraid there is no cure for outrage fatigue, especially these days. However, we may be able to manage it. Focus on one or two issues that have particular resonance for you, be it climate change, immigrant rights, or other topics, As can be seen from this previous post, I’m focusing on the suppression of government scientists and dissemination of their data. Already a few reversals have come, but vigilance is necessary to prevent backsliding. Doing a little is better than doing nothing.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/28/outrage-fatigue/

Jan 25

Speaking Up for Science

It’s been a bad week for scientists. Shortly after being inaugurated, President Trump froze grants and contracts administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Yesterday the administration instructed several government agencies, including the EPA and the Agricultural Research Service at the Department of Agriculture, to curtail communications with the public via news releases and social media. In addition, employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were told not to discuss new or pending regulations or guidances in public forums or with public officials. These disturbing developments bode ill for the status of government-funded science in the next few years.

The suspension of EPA contracts and grants will have ripple effects throughout the science establishment. Laboratory technicians, graduate students, and postdocs will lose jobs. Some of these students and postdocs are on student visas, meaning that the loss of funding necessitates return to their home countries. It’s difficult to write manuscripts without full access to data or hands-on mentorship, especially if English is not one’s native language. Opportunities to gather data in the field will be lost; as a result, studies may never be started or completed.

Even more troubling is the gag order on agencies. An important part of science is dissemination of data, both in peer-reviewed publications and in public forums. As the taxpayers paid for this research, taxpayers are entitled to hear about the results. If NIH officials cannot speak to elected representatives about upcoming reports, it is governmental malpractice. The people are ill-served by silence. These actions have their precedents in some of the evils of the 20th century. In regimes from the Soviets to the Taliban, the first purges came in the academic and scientific communities.

What can the scientific community do about this? Raise hell. Speak up about this egregious governmental meddling in research. Call your elected representatives, especially if institutions in your Congressional District get a large amount of funding from these agencies. (Think colleges and teaching hospitals.) Write letters to the editor of your local paper. Yes, they still get published and people do read them. Write your letters in plain English. Focus on the practical aspects of this research; for example, vaccines against the Zika virus or the impact of climate change on shorelines and wildlife. Put a local spin on your letter, especially the economic impact of these changes. Only by speaking up for science can we hope to reverse these misguided maneuvers.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/25/speaking-up-for-science/

Jan 23

As We Come Marching, Marching

Along with many other cities around the country, Seattle was the site of a large Women’s March. In keeping with the Seattle Way, ours was called the Womxn’s March. This was to include anyone with sympathies with the goals of the march.
I arrived at the Park and Ride around 8:20. There was already a large group of folks waiting for the bus downtown. When the bus arrived, it was nearly full already. I grabbed one of the last open seats. More riders got on, and the bus was full before we hit the Seattle city limits. Despite the sardine-can conditions, everyone was in good spirits.
Many of us got off the bus in the International District and walked to the starting point, Judkins Park. It was an uphill slog, but less steep than some of the other routes. The open field was awash with pink pussy hats and interesting signs. It took me a while to find my church group; in the meantime, I ran into other acquaintances and chatted up a young woman who was wearing a St. Lawrence University shirt. I finally found my group and got ready to march.

Mobilizing a large mass of humanity is difficult enough. Mobilizing a large mass of humanity onto narrow residential streets is damn near impossible. It took my group nearly an hour to get out of the park, and an hour to get one block. Our group entertained ourselves by singing “We Are a Gentle Angry People” and “This Little Light of Mine”. One of the neighborhood residents set up his audio system to play an anti-Trump rap for the marchers.

The mass of humanity on Jackson Street in Little Saigon. Note that not everyone marched (right).

Once we got to Jackson Street, the main drag of Little Saigon and the International District, the mass of humanity was able to spread out and move quickly. People on the sidewalks cheered us on. The Viet Wah supermarket set up an outdoor refreshment stand. My favorite sign is shown below. The sign and the man holding it were posted near the interstate 5 overpass. Also on Jackson Street, a woman updated us on the participation: 100,000. The Seattle police officers along the route seemed to enjoy the passing scene. As well they should have: We were a peaceful crowd. No arrests, no vandalism.

No comment needed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it all the way to the end of the march. After i took the photo above, my knees decided that I should go home. I met some marchers who made the same decision on the train to the University District, including a woman who’d had two knee replacements inside of a year. Another rider heard that the participation was over 120,000: “That’s more than the Seahawks’ Super Bowl parade!”

My “inner iPod” was playing several tunes while I was marching. One was a little chant by Fiona Apple that Julian had emailed to me. The second was “Bread and Roses”, an old women’s labor song based on a poem by James Oppenheim. This post’s title is a line from the song. This is the last verse:

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Over a century later, we’re still marching for the same stuff.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/23/as-we-come-marching-marching/

Jan 19

Better than Chicken Soup

Julian’s had a nasty cold this week. Last night he decided he needed soup to decongest his respiratory tract. He stopped at a Vietnamese joint north of us and brought home two servings of bun bo Hue, one of my favorite soups.

Bun bo Hue is a Vietnamese noodle soup, but it’s more complex than pho. First, it contains both pork and beef. Some restaurants will also add Vietnamese pork roll (what Julian calls nose meat); others will add blood cake. However, most of the recipes I’ve seen in cookbooks use beef shank and fresh ham for the soup. Other differences between bun bo Hue and pho are the use of chiles and shrimp sauce in bun bo Hue for spice and funk. Bun bo Hue noodles are also thicker than standard pho rice vermicelli. Both soups are served with an herb platter, which can also contain lime wedges and bean sprouts.

I had my first taste of bun bo Hue at a Vietnamese restaurant in Rochester, NY many years ago. It was love at first slurp. The soup isn’t easy to find in restaurants. Your all-purpose House of Pho wants to serve variations on one or two broths to simplify the menu and keep costs low. Making the broth for bun bo Hue is more involved, and requires multiple steps to build up the layers of flavor. The noodles take much longer to cook than rice vermicelli, about 15 minutes. Finally, the owners of many pho joints believe that their non-Asian customers wouldn’t like bun bo Hue.

Making bun bo Hue at home isn’t difficult, providing you have a good Asian grocery store nearby. You want to get pork and beef cuts with bones to make the broth. The only challenging ingredients to find are the bun bo Hue noodles and an herb called rau ram (sometimes called Vietnamese coriander) for the herb platter. My go-to recipe is in Mai Pham’s Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. I bought the book solely on the basis of the bun bo Hue recipe; luckily, the other recipes are keepers as well. I’ve also used the recipe from Andrea Nguyen’s Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. Either recipe will yield a soup that will clear your sinuses and convince you that your ancestors took the long way to Plymouth Rock or Ellis Island.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/19/better-than-chicken-soup/

Jan 17

Ignoring is Bliss

I do not plan to watch or listen to the Inauguration festivities live on Friday. This is an easy choice to make. I’ll be at work in a cube farm on Friday, and I don’t particularly like to use earphones. I may listen to the oldies station on the drive home. If I do pay attention, I’ll probably read about it on “loser” websites such as washingtonpost.com or cnn.com.

Addendum: I’m apparently not the only one hereabouts who will ignore Friday’s brouhaha. So will Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/17/ignoring-is-bliss/

Jan 17

The Travails of a Two-Person Kitchen

Back in the day, the kitchen was the headquarters (or prison) for the woman of the house. She’d shop for groceries, make all of the family meals, and clean up thereafter. Children – usually the daughters – would assist in the kitchen chores as soon as they could stand on a stool to reach the sink. Luckily, things have (mostly) changed. Many men not only set foot in the kitchen, but out-cook their female partners. When two people claim the kitchen as their own, chaos can erupt.

Julian and I consolidated kitchens many years ago. For most of our moves, I organized the kitchen and cookbooks first and he configured the electronics. (We’d both say that we had our priorities straight.) This division of labor would result in exchanges similar to this:

J: CJ, I can’t find anything in this kitchen! Where’s the [insert essential ingredient or utensil here]?

C (going straight to the shelf where said item is located, usually hiding in plain sight): If this were a rattlesnake, you’d be dead meat by now.

J: I’ll never understand your organization system.

When we purchased new cookware for the induction range (see The Homeowner Begets post), I decided to let him reorganize the kitchen. I admit that he did a good job overall. He got pull-out shelves for the colanders and cat food, and wire shelves to expand the amount of usable space in the cupboards. However, we now have variations on the following exchange:

J: CJ, where’s the wok?

C: You organized the kitchen. It’s right where you put it.

Beyond organization, we’ve adopted several strategies to maintain domestic tranquility:

  • Never argue with or sneak up on the person wielding the knife. This does not mean we get into saber fights on a regular basis. This is more self-preservation for the knife-wielder. If s/he gets distracted or startled, a nasty cut could ensue.
  • Respect the other’s turf. Both of us are in the kitchen at the same time when we’re having our friends over to dinner. We have our own section of counter with a cutting board and knife for our separate mises en place. This avoids misappropriation of ingredients: “You stole my chopped onion!”
  • Make sure items stored in the refrigerator (even temporarily) are covered and well-sealed. This reduces the risk of spills or odor permeation. Think sauerkraut-scented orange juice: Not very palatable.
  • S/He who does not cook does the dishes. This dates back to his days running the kitchen of his co-op and my days rooming and cooking with friends.

Reducing the number of arguments about the kitchen leaves us plenty of bandwidth to bicker about other things; which movie to watch after dinner, for example.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/17/the-travails-of-a-two-person-kitchen/

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